How easy, then, to have belief
when travelling by sight -
when stars are bright, are gleaming hard,
the sky as black as it should be
the road an afterthought.
How simple when the fire is warm
to bear the winter's chill -
to feel that fierce suffusing fire
consuming doubt and passing years
as dry things in its path.
I feel the road. Its stony way
is treacherous beneath my feet.
The boredom aches - but if I look
around I see the other grey
and lonely souls whose journey takes
the same lost path as mine.
If I could stop for precious time
to wait and feel and know,
out of the dark surrounding me
the pressure of that unseen light
might come again - might flood the soul -
come, Lord. Come soon. Come now.
©C.M.M.
1 comment:
The journey is such a pervasive metaphor for faith. We like the ideas of movement, provisionality, quest, the sense of an ending. But your poem powerfully hints at the down side of a non stop journey. As well as movement, rest; as well as provisonality, enough truth to cling to; as well as quest, a hoped for and believed in destination; as well as an ending, the journey itself. Thanks Chris for a poem that touches deep into honest doubt, without sentiment, but not without sympathy for all of us when we recognise our longings have limits to their fulfilment.
Post a Comment